Hi all, for those of us who have an interest in learning about how to build a more wonderful future and who wish to be inspired by those rare few actually building something different, I recommend that you visit and enjoy the Norman Foster exhibit at the Centre Pompidou which ends on the 7th of August. Those who are unfamiliar may not see the relevance of a building architect's work to programmers and software / hardware designers, but I assure you that his long history of work is exceptionally relevant. His designs are a deeply-considered human-scale 'high-tech' alternative to traditionalist buildings and to postmodern buildings. With tonnes of innovative features which had never been implemented before and which seemed obvious and common-sense after the fact. This work sounds a lot like what we are working on in the software, hardware and otherwise industrial realms. If you are in Paris or are able to get to Paris, entry is 17 euros. I'll be going on the 7th of August if anyone is around for drinks, lunch and/or a chat 🙂

Taking Norman Foster as inspiration is such a striking contrast to the more typical option, Christopher Alexander. At least at first glance, Foster seems diametrically opposed to Alexander (top-down design of large structures vs bottom-up design of small structures), though your description of Foster’s work as “human-scale” suggests reality may be more complicated… I don’t know much about Foster. It’s fun to explore different possible points of contact between the fields! Thanks for the pointer.

Thanks @Martin Shaw! I'd be happy to join you (I live near Paris) but I am on vacation at a much larger distance.

@Konrad Hinsen That is unfortunate. Enjoy your holiday !

@Martin Shaw Exciting to hear! I’m familiar with “A Pattern Language” and “The Timeless Way of Building”; other folk here may have plunged into “The Nature of Order”. As far as influence on CS goes, you may be interested in his OOPSLA keynote (!): https://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/ieee.html.